'Boys, we've got to make a break for it'

Graydon 'Woody' Woods, shown in his Schnecksville apartment, served in the 28th Infantry Division in World War II and was badly wounded in Germany's Huertgen Forest.

Graydon 'Woody' Woods, shown in his Schnecksville apartment, served in the 28th Infantry Division in World War II and was badly wounded in Germany's Huertgen Forest. (Harry Fisher/The Morning Call)

An Interview by David VendittaOf The Morning Call

Graydon "Woody" Woods grew up on a western Pennsylvania farm, married an Allentown girl during World War II and went to Europe with the Army's 28th Infantry Division. Pfc. Woods fought in the hedgerows of Normandy and paraded before cheering throngs in liberated Paris. Then came the battle in the Huertgen Forest along the Belgian-German border. Woods is now 90 and lives in Schnecksville. On this Veterans Day, he remembers what happened in the forest in early November 1944.

We had a good battle in Schmidt, Germany, one day and we took the town. The Germans pulled back, but not for long. They reinforced and came back at us and pushed us out.

I was with the 112th Infantry. The 109th Infantry was down on our left. The Germans pushed the 109th back and got in behind us. A whole battalion cut us off from our lines.

We couldn't get any support. We were just sitting there in a little patch of woods, waiting for help to come, for our armor to come up and blast us out. We dug foxholes and got in them, slept in them.

One night I'm laying in my foxhole and I heard a shot and grabbed my rifle. I thought: The Germans are coming in now. Here, a kid in the foxhole next to me yelled, "I shot myself in the foot!" He'd had the safety off his M-1, and in his sleep he kicked the trigger.

There were three of our tanks knocked out up on a hill. German 88s got them and had them blazing. There were C rations in those tanks. We'd sneak up there one at a time to get the C rations, but we didn't get very many. Those tanks were pretty well beat up.

We were trapped for five days without food or water.

One night this colonel called us together. It was his tanks that were knocked out up on the hill.

"Boys," he said, "We're gonna starve to death here. We've got to make a break for it. All right, everybody grab a hold of the guy's cartridge belts in front of you, and we'll get out of here."

So I grabbed hold of the colonel's cartridge belt. I stayed with him.

It was raining, and the rain turned to snow later that night.

We started down this hill back toward our lines. The Germans heard us coming. They started laying mortars in on us. You can't hear them go off, but when they come over, ZOOM!

I can still hear the guys yelling who got hit.

The colonel said, "We've got to go another way, we've got to turn around and go back."

So we went back up on the hill and way out along a ridge and down over a bank to a river. And we waded across it. It was up to my neck.

I was so thirsty, I took my helmet off and dipped it into the water and when I took a drink, I dropped my rifle. It fell off my shoulder. It wouldn't have done me any good anyway.

We got across the river and went up the hill on the other side. My boots were full of water. We got up to the top of the hill, and there was a big open field where the artillery had set a barn on fire. It lit up the whole countryside.

The colonel says, "Boys, break up in twos and threes. Go in all directions. They can't get us all."

So me and the colonel and one of my buddies started across this open field in the night. Pretty soon the Germans were shooting tracer bullets, and we could see them going over our heads, all around us. The Germans were trying to pinpoint us with the tracers.

All at once something spun me around and I hit the ground. A bullet went through my leg. It felt like somebody chopped it off. It happened so fast. Ohhhh ohhhh, I started moaning.

The colonel says, "Quiet! If they hear us, they'll really lay it in."

I says, "I'm hit."

"Where?"

"In my leg."

So he pulled my boot off. He said, "Aw, you're just scratched. It isn't even bleeding. Let's get the hell out of here."

I thought, well, maybe I am scared more than anything. I grabbed a hold of his belt, and the kid behind me grabbed me. First step I took, the bones went by each other in my leg and down I went again.

It was my right leg, below the knee. Where the bullet went in was a hole the size of my fingertip, but when it went out the other side, it took out a 4-inch chunk of flesh and bone.

I told the colonel, "I don't think I can make it, sir. You guys get out of here. I'll get out tomorrow morning or somebody will find me. Either the Germans will take me prisoner or our troops will find me."

"Oh no," the colonel said. "You're going with us. Put one arm around this fella's shoulder and one arm around mine, and hop on one leg."

So I did that for about a mile.

You know, I wished I'd gotten that colonel's name. But times like that, there was so much going on.

We went across the field and came to a little road going through a woods and took cover when we heard a truck coming. The colonel said, "We'll flag this one down. We'll get you a ride."

When it got a little closer, I told the colonel: "Don't stop that one. It's German." The colonel probably knew it, too. You could always tell a German vehicle by the sound of the motor.

"OK, boys, get down behind the bank."

So we waited until the German truck went by. Pretty soon we heard a jeep coming up the road. It was one of our guys. The colonel flagged him down. The driver was by himself. The colonel said to him: "Load this fella on the jeep and head back to an aid station."

So the driver took the three of us -- the colonel, me and my buddy -- across a field. I was getting pretty weak, I'd lost a lot of blood, but I never passed out. If the bullet had hit me in the shoulder or the head, I would have been finished.

We got back to a dugout. It was originally a German aid station, built underground. It had a big waterproof cover over it. The colonel went inside and said, "Hey guys, get a medic up here."

A couple guys came out and took me in on a stretcher. They gave me a shot of morphine first. Ooh, everything got warm, no more pain. It felt like I went to heaven. They packed my leg with sulfa powder and wrapped it up, stopped the bleeding.

They loaded me on an ambulance and we went way back in the rear. I got on a troop train to Paris with other wounded guys, and they put me in a hospital.

A doctor said, "How the hell did you make it out with this wound? You could have bled to death."

I stayed for about a week or so, and then they sent me to the 68th General Hospital over in England. I was there for a couple months or so.

The big brass came to check on everybody in the hospital and see who could go back to the fighting. They sent a lot of guys back for the Battle of the Bulge.

They couldn't send me. I had a cast on my leg clear up to my hip. They knew I couldn't ever walk like that.

I got tagged for a trip home.

Epilogue

Woods served with Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 112th Infantry Regiment. He received a Purple Heart for the wound he suffered Nov. 9, 1944, in the Huertgen Forest near Schmidt, Germany. He spent a year recuperating.

A 1998 HBO film, "When Trumpets Fade," is about the fighting around Schmidt.

Woods was the lucky one in his family. His brother Nevin died on the Bataan Death March.

"I had a guardian angel all the way through combat," Woods said.

While in training, he hitchhiked to Allentown to visit a buddy and met Florence Snyder. They were married in 1943 and went on to have a son, Scott, and a daughter, Linda Mory. Florence died in 2001.